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Arafat Remains Defiant Amid Rubble of His Compound

Sealed up with at least 200 men in his dust-choked offices while Israeli bulldozers leveled buildings just outside and issued dire warnings over loudspeakers, Yasir Arafat defiantly declared today that he would not capitulate. At the same time, he called on Palestinians to halt attacks inside Israel.

Outside the compound, an Israeli commander said the siege and the demolitions would continue until all the Palestinians inside who are wanted by Israel, whose number rose today to about 50, surrendered. Mr. Arafat has refused to give up the men.

The pressures and tension continued to mount steadily into the night. Israeli soldiers used bullhorns to warn Mr. Arafat and those with him that they intended to blow up a building just outside his headquarters, urging the men to surrender or risk being wounded or killed. Mr. Arafat refused.

There were no explosions as of midnight, but bulldozers and backhoes continued to hammer at remaining buildings in the compound while giant floodlights played over Mr. Arafat's building.

''This is a dangerous development,'' Mr. Arafat's aide, Nabil Aburdeineh, said by telephone from inside the besieged building. ''They know that President Arafat is not the kind of man who surrenders or leaves by force.''

Late in the night, thousands of Palestinian men, women and children heeded calls from mosques and converged on the central Manara Square in Ramallah to chant their support for Mr. Arafat and to pelt Israeli armored vehicles with stones. Israelis responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, and Palestinians said two people had been killed.

Violent demonstrations were also reported in Tulkarm, Nablus and Jenin, towns also under curfew, and Palestinians reported that one person was killed in Nablus and another in Tulkarm. Thousands of Palestinians were also reported demonstrating in Gaza, which is not under Israeli occupation.

In his first public statement since the siege began Thursday evening, distributed by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, Mr. Arafat declared, ''We are ready for peace but not for capitulation, and we will not give up Jerusalem or a grain of our soil which we are guaranteed to us by international law.''

He continued, ''I reiterate my call to the reiterate my call to the Palestinian people and all our parties to halt any violent attacks inside Israel because Sharon exploits them as a cover to destroy the peace of the brave.''

The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the full isolation of Mr. Arafat after two suicide bombings on Wednesday and Thursday killed seven Israelis, and broke a 45-day lull in attacks inside Israel. Extremist Islamic organizations over which Mr. Arafat has no control, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Mr. Sharon focused his retaliatory fury on Mr. Arafat, whom he holds directly responsible for all acts of Palestinian terror.

The government demanded that Mr. Arafat surrender wanted men in the compound with him. The commander of the operation, who asked that his rank and name not be used, said the number of wanted men had risen from 17 to about 50, of whom 10 ranked as most wanted. They include Tawfiz Tirawi, the once-powerful head of West Bank intelligence.

Earlier in the day, the Israeli army escorted a group of reporters to the compound. Two Palestinian flags fluttered from the roof of the three-story building in which Israeli officers said Mr. Arafat and all the other Palestinians were cooped up. Some windows were piled high with sandbags, others were closed with pink shutters.

Several other adjacent buildings still stood, all vacant and with varying degrees of damage. But giant Israeli military bulldozers and backhoes had already leveled all the buildings south of Mr. Arafat's, about a dozen, and the commander said they would continue until all buildings except the one were gone.

''My mission is to get all the wanted men out of the mukataa,'' the commander said, using the Arabic word for an administrative center by which the compound is known. ''We will not stop until all the wanted men come out.''

The commander laconically described the demolitions as ''psychological combat.'' From time to time, he said, calls were broadcast over loudspeakers urging the men to come out and halt further destruction. Thirty-eight men had surrendered, but none of the wanted men, he said.

The commander's statements and what could be seen of the vast compound, which covers an area of about four city blocks, differed from some of the reports that Mr. Arafat's aides had provided from within, apparently because of their limited field of vision.

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There was no evidence of a trench around Mr. Arafat's building, at least from one side, though it was ringed with barbed wire. There were also several buildings still standing to the north of his, including the administrative center, which had been connected to his building by a bridge and where guards had lived.

All the buildings other than Mr. Arafat's, however, were vacant and badly damaged either by shells or bulldozers. On the opposite side of the headquarters, all the buildings -- including many that already had been damaged in the extensive Israeli incursions last spring -- had been leveled, as were many stretches of the wall around the compound.

The commander denied that any shells had been fired at Mr. Arafat's building, but a photographer inside the compound said a tank shell had been fired through a window.

The commander said Mr. Arafat was free to leave anytime he wanted to. ''My mission is not to arrest Arafat,'' he said.

Mr. Arafat has not left the compound in months, and is not likely to now, in part because his presence provides the only protection for the others inside.

The government reaffirmed today that its purpose is to isolate, and not to kill or exile Mr. Arafat. Israel's Channel Two television news reported that military officials said their ultimate objective was to confine him to a tiny space in difficult conditions until he asked for exile. He has declared that he would never leave the Palestinian territories.

The commander said that there had been some gunfire from the compound on the first night of the operation, but that it had largely stopped. One man was killed on Friday after he shot at the Israelis, he said.

He said no one was being allowed to approach the compound, including Mr. Arafat's aides. The Israeli radio said Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer had rejected one request from Mr. Arafat's second in command, Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen. At the same time, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres declined a request from Saeb Erekat, the senior Palestinian negotiator. The Palestinians had requested to see Mr. Arafat to discuss how to put an end to the siege.

Mr. Arafat has been confined to Ramallah since December, and to his compound since Israel carried out a major military offensive in the West Bank in March. The first siege ended in May after the United States negotiated an agreement to imprison several wanted men in Jericho under American and British guard, but Mr. Arafat has not ventured out since.

On Sept. 11, he addressed a meeting of the Palestinian Legislative Council in the administrative building adjacent to his headquarters. The bridge connecting that building to the one where he remains is now destroyed.

The new siege in Ramallah drew sharp condemnations from the European Union, and the White House urged Mr. Sharon to consider the consequences of his actions, citing progress that had been made in recent weeks toward political reform and restraint among moderate Palestinians.

''Significant, quiet progress had been made behind the scenes in the Palestinian Authority, and there had been a sustained period of quiet without homicide bombings in Israel,'' the White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, said on Friday.

''Israel has the right to defend itself and to deal with security,'' he said, ''but Israel also has a need to bear in mind the consequences of action and Israel's stake in development of reforms in the Palestinian institutions.''

At the request of Arab states, the United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting for Monday to discuss the situation in Ramallah.

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A version of this article appears in print on September 22, 2002, on Page 1001008 of the National edition with the headline: Arafat Remains Defiant Amid Rubble of His Compound. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe